BEST Hearing Aids of 2023 | 6 Top Rated Devices | Receiver-in-Canal (RIC)

This is basically the BEST lineup of Receiver-in-Canal hearing aids that I have ever seen. Hi guys. Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona. And in this video I'm gonna share my top six picks for the BEST Receiver-in-Canal hearing aids in 2023, coming up!

Well, it is that time of year again where I take a look at all of the different hearing aids currently available on the market, and I share with you which ones I think are the best of the best. It is still hard for me to believe that hearing aid technology continues to get better and better year after year. And here we are a year later and this continues to be the case. But before I give you my top picks for the six BEST Receiver-in-Canal hearing aids as we enter 2023, if you could do me a huge favor and click the like button, it really helps out my channel and lets me know that you want me to make more videos just like this one. And while you're at it, if you have not yet hit that subscribe button with notification bell, go ahead and do that as well, because that ensures that you never miss one of my newly released videos and I release multiple new videos every single week.

That being said, I really appreciate it. Now let's get into some disclaimers before I jump into this video. Disclaimer number one, it does not matter how awesome any one of the hearing aids are that I talk about in this video if you have not had it fit and programmed correctly by a hearing care professional who follows Best Practices. Now, if you do not know what Best Practices are, then you need to check out my video that I will link in the description because Best Practices are the only way to ensure that you maximize your performance with your hearing aids. If you want an easy way to find a hearing care professional in your area who follows Best Practices, then go to HearingUp.com and find a HearingUp network member near you so you can experience the difference that exceptional hearing care makes. Disclaimer number two, I do not rank these hearing aids in order on purpose because what might be the perfect hearing aid for someone else might not be the perfect hearing aid for you.

This really depends on your specific wants and needs and your hearing loss. Disclaimer number three, this video is dedicated to the best receiver in canal hearing aids. So if you're looking for the best custom hearing aids, the best Bluetooth hearing aids, the best invisible hearing aids, the best budget hearing aids, or the best over the counter hearing aids, then make sure that you go down to the description of this video to find those videos. Disclaimer number four, I do not give pricing in any of these videos because pricing is incredibly dependent on where you live, what technology level you go with, what type of services are included with your purchase, the quality of those services, and a variety of other factors as well. Pricing can vary by thousands of dollars, so me sharing any type of pricing information in this video would be basically pointless.

And disclaimer number five, just like my review videos, this video is not sponsored. It is just a short list of receiver in canal hearing aids that I find to be a cut above the rest. And speaking of review videos, every single one of the hearing aids that I talk about in this video does have a dedicated review video. So if any one of them piques your interest, make sure that you check that video out as well. All right, with that out of the way, let's go ahead and get into my top six receiver in canal hearing aids of 2023. The first one being the ReSound OMNIA. The ReSound OMNIA hearing aid is the newest hearing aid in ReSound's arsenal. It replaces the ReSound ONE hearing aid. That was a fantastic hearing aid in its own right, but this is definitely the best hearing aid that ReSound has ever released.

The reason this hearing aid made the list in 2023 is because it has a 150% improvement of speech understanding and background noise compared to the previous generation ReSound ONE technology. ReSound was able to accomplish this by improving how well they process sound inside of the hearing aid, as well as how they are controlling the directional microphones, which resulted in a signal to noise ratio improvement of over four decibels. However, this is not the only bright spot for this hearing aid. This hearing aid is also the only hearing aid that allows you to use a receiver that has a microphone inside of your ear canal. ReSound calls this the M&RIE receiver, which is designed to preserve your natural pinna effect to make sound more natural. ReSound's data shows that people prefer the sound quality using the M&RIE receiver to a standard receiver using a pinna restoration algorithm. Utilizing your natural pinna effect is extremely beneficial when you're trying to determine which direction sound is coming from.

We call this localization, and this is extremely helpful when you're trying to locate a lost cell phone inside of your house by calling it and listening for the ringer, or just trying to figure out which direction someone is yelling your name from. The ReSound OMNIA hearing aid pairs easily with an iPhone or an Android phone. That gives you the ability to wirelessly stream audio into both of your ears at the same time. And it also gives you compatibility with the ReSound Smart 3D app, which is one of the better hearing aid apps on the market right now. It is also available in rechargeable and non-rechargeable form factors, and they give you access to a variety of different wireless accessories like the ReSound Multi Mic and the TV streamer. The thing I also really like about ReSound is that they give you access to a telecoil as well, whether it's inside of the hearing aid itself or by using the Multi Mic.

If you're looking to upgrade your hearing aid technology in 2023, then the ReSound OMNIA is a solid option. The second hearing aid on the list is the Oticon More. The Oticon More is well known for its use of a deep neural network to perform deep learning when it's performing sound processing. Now, I give a much more detailed explanation on what deep learning is in my review video of the Oticon More so I recommend that you do check out that video if you're interested, but this is basically a way to use artificial intelligence to process sound. Oticon still has the philosophy of keeping your listening landscape open in a background noise situation, so you are aware of sounds around you in a background noise situation, but it doesn't hinder you in being able to understand the person that you're having a conversation with. The Oticon More continues to impress me with how well it can amplify high frequency speech information by using a rubber dome.

And when you think about it, the vast majority of individuals have a high frequency hearing loss, which makes this hearing aid a really good fit for a lot of people. However, if you do need a custom ear mold, Oticon also has a fantastic custom ear mold called the MicroShell. This custom ear mold has the ability to make this hearing aid perform even better than if you just use it with a rubber dome. While this hearing aid was initially released in January of 2021, Oticon has been releasing consistent firmware updates to unlock new features and to improve the performance of this device. Of course, the Oticon More is compatible with Apple devices and Android devices with a variety of different Bluetooth options, and you have the ability to do two-way audio through this hearing aid or toggle off two-way audio, which is another feature that I really like about this hearing aid.

Of course, if you want to use two-way audio, you have to use an Apple device. You can get the Oticon More in a rechargeable and non-rechargeable form factor, and the best news is both of them come with an embedded telecoil. If you're deaf in one ear, you can get a CROS transmitter with these devices as well, which means you can have a fantastic hearing aid. Even if you need CROS transmission, you'd be hard pressed to find an overall hearing aid that is better than the Oticon More, which is why it is still on the list here in 2023. The third hearing aid to make the list is the Phonak Audeo Lumity. The Audeo Lumity line of hearing aids builds upon the popularity of the Audeo Paradise hearing aids, which gives you the ability to use Bluetooth Classic, which means that you can connect up to virtually any other Bluetooth device with these hearing aids, not to mention the ability to pair with up to eight different Bluetooth devices at one time with two concurrent devices being active.

This means you don't have to constantly be turning off and on Bluetooth between multiple devices. You can just pop back and forth between your two favorites. The MyPhonak app is not the most stable app out there in the hearing aid world, but it is one of the most fully functional meaning you can go in and make a lot of customizations on your own devices if you're into that kind of thing. The Lumity hearing aids also have one of my absolute favorite features, which is AutoSense OS 5.0. This allows your hearing care professional to make customizations in a variety of different program settings that automatically get entered into based on your acoustic environment. And yes, your hearing aid automatically switches into these program settings without you having to do anything. You also get features like tap control, which is my mother's favorite feature on her hearing aids.

This allows you to pause and start streaming by double tapping your ear. It allows you to answer and hang up on phone calls, as well as activate a voice assistant. Phonak has some of the best wireless accessories out there as well with their Partner Microphone, their TV connector, as well as their Roger microphones that allow you to do a variety of different things that all help you out significantly in background noise situations. Their custom C-Shell ear molds are also probably my favorite ear molds that are out there right now because they use acoustically optimized venting, which takes into account a variety of different factors when building the exact right vent size for you and your hearing loss. Speaking of ear molds, they're also the only hearing aid manufacturer that makes something called an ActiveVent receiver, which opens and closes the venting depending on what you're trying to accomplish, and this can help you get better performance from a streaming perspective if you like listening to music because it gives you more of the bass tones and it can help you out substantially in a background noise situation by closing off those vents and preventing noise from entering your ear canal naturally.

Unfortunately, this hearing aid only comes in rechargeable form factors, so you cannot get a disposable battery version of this hearing aid at this time, but you do get a rechargeable. You get a rechargeable with a telecoil, and you also get a rechargeable Life version, which is the waterproof model. And when it comes to waterproofing, the Phonak Audeo Lumity Life hearing aid is the most waterproof hearing aid on the planet. While many of the hearing aids that are currently out there have an IP rating of 68, which means that they're extremely resistant to solids and moisture, this hearing aid is on an entirely different level that blows that rating away, and it continues to be the only hearing aid that I cannot kill with water. Phonak accomplished this level of waterproofing by doing a few additional things to this particular hearing aid. They took a peryline coating to coat every single one of the electronic components inside of the hearing aid to make it waterproof.

They also took silicone and lined all of the seals to make sure that no water could enter into the hearing aid, and they even used a Goretex lining on the microphone so water couldn't enter in through the microphones. And to top it all off, they used inductive charging instead of contact charging to remove any kind of battery contacts. I have taken this hearing aid swimming. I have taken it trail running, and I have showered in these particular hearing aids and I still cannot get them to stop working. Overall, the Phonak Audeo Lumity line of devices with all of the different features that they have has definitely earned them a spot on this list in 2023. The fourth hearing aid on the list of best hearing aids as we enter 2023 is the Signia AX. The Signia Augmented Xperience line of devices are the only hearing aids out there that use dual processors.

While these dual processors are not necessarily the reason that these hearing aids made the list in 2023, they did make the list for these hearing aids' ability to handle Own Voice Processing, handle reverberent environments, and the way that they charge. Own Voice Processing 2.0 is an upgrade from the previous generation of Own Voice Processing, which allows these hearing aids to reduce the amount of amplification given to your voice without necessarily reducing amplification to everything else around you that you still wanna hear. This feature can help individuals who tend to struggle with adapting to their own voice when they first adopt hearing treatment. The Auto Echo Shield feature allows the Signia AX devices to reduce amplification of reverberation, so it does not interfere with direct speech signals. So if you tend to have difficulty in reverberant environments like a kitchen or a living room that has tall ceilings and hardwood floors, then the Signia AX devices might be the perfect devices for you.

The Signia AX line of devices also come in rechargeable and non-rechargeable form factors. Now, when it comes to the rechargeable form factor, they use something called galvanic charging. Not only does this form of charging keep these hearing aids really small, but it also gives you an immense amount of battery life of up to 40 hours of life on a single charge. The AX line of hearing aids are also Bluetooth compatible with both Android devices and Apple devices. If you want to do two-way audio though, you have to have an Apple device, and they have a very, very nice smartphone app. They also have a few accessories like a companion microphone and a TV streamer, so you can stream audio directly into both of your hearing aids. One of my favorite hearing aids in the Augmented Xperience lineup from an aesthetic perspective is this Styletto AX, which is their fashion device.

Not only is this the best looking hearing aid that is currently out there on the market, but it has all of the same great features that you can find inside of all of the other Augmented Xperience hearing aids from Signia. It also happens to be a big reason why the Signia AX line of hearing aids made the list. The fifth hearing aid on this list is the Widex Moment Sheer. Now, I debated whether or not to include this hearing aid on this year's list, but there are a few things that are unique to Widex that they excel in. First, Widex has some of the fastest processing of any hearing aid on the market. They call this PureSound, and it's made possible by their zero delay sound processing strategy. Basically, by limiting the amount of sound processing that they're doing on an incoming signal, it has allowed them to reduce the amount of artifact created by the cone filter effect.

The Comb filter effect occurs when amplified sound from a hearing aid mixes with natural sound that enters the ear canal through an open dome and causes a small amount of distortion. By having a processing delay that is less than a few milliseconds, it reduces the amount that this cone filter effect that actually occurs. Keep in mind this is only for individuals who have a mild to moderate hearing loss though. Second is the SoundSense Learn feature that is located inside of the Widex smartphone app. This particular feature uses machine learning to learn your hearing preferences. This allows you to train your hearing aids and optimize your hearing ability through a series of AB comparisons while you are actually in a real life listening situation. It's kind of like having an audiologist inside of your smartphone that you can take with you wherever you go. So if you need customizations to your programming, you can just do it right from your phone. And the third reason why the Widex Moment Sheer made the list this year is because of their Zen fractal tones for tinnitus. Instead of just using a variety of different static noises to mask over your perception of tinnitus, like most hearing aid manufacturers do, Widex actually uses something called the fractal tone, which are a variety of different tones used to distract you from your own tinnitus and to reduce your annoyance to it. Let me go ahead and play you a sound sample of what these actually sound like.

While these Zen fractal tones will not work for everybody, it is a novel attempt at trying to reduce the annoyance of your tinnitus. The Widex Moment Sheer comes in one form factor. All you get is the rechargeable hearing aid, it is just a single hearing aid option. So if you want a disposable battery hearing aid, you're probably gonna have to go back a generation and just get the Widex Moment. And to be quite honest, there's not a whole lot of difference between these two hearing aids from a capability standpoint. So I'd say go ahead and do it. If you want a disposable battery hearing aid, the Widex Moment Sheer does give you Bluetooth compatibility with an Apple and Android device as well, so you can stream any kind of audio into both of your ears, and it gives you access to that Widex Moment app that I was talking about.

And last, but definitely not least, the sixth hearing aid on the list of best receiver in canal hearing aids of 2023 is the Starkey Evolv AI. The Starkey Evolv AI receiver in canal hearing aids are probably better known for all of the different things that they allow you to do outside of just hearing better. For instance, they have features like fall detection, activity tracking, and even language translation. Fall detection uses motion sensors embedded inside of these hearing aids to identify if you have had a fall, and if you do, it will send a notification to someone who you have set up inside of your smartphone. It could be a caregiver, it could be a family member, it could be a friend. This particular feature has literally saved the lives of numerous Starkey hearing aid users because without this particular feature, individuals fall over and they can't get up to get help.

On top of that, the Starkey Thrive app has a wellness score that identifies your activity levels as well as your engagement levels. This is a great way for you to identify if you're being active enough, which we know is very important for longevity and language translation has to be one of the craziest features that I've ever seen inside of a hearing aid because these hearing aids can literally translate a variety of different languages so you can hear it in your native language. The only problem is, is that when you talk back to the other person, they're not wearing these hearing aids too, so they can't necessarily understand what you're saying. But this is a really cool feature if you have a good wifi connection or a very stable cell phone connection. When it comes to hearing better and a background noise situation, the Starkey Evolv AI hearing aids have something called Edge Mode, so when you activate this, it actually helps to reduce the background noise and accentuate the speech that you want to hear. Let me go ahead and play you a sample of Edge Mode so you can hear what it sounds like.

No, no, nah come on, ref. Are you kidding me?

Pretty cool, right? Their Starkey Evolv AI hearing aids are also Bluetooth compatible with Apple devices and Android devices. I know you've heard me say this a number of times, but pretty much all of the best hearing aids at this point are, and yes, you do get two-way audio if you use an Apple device. Okay, so technically there are six different form factors of this Evolv AI receiver in canal hearing aid. Basically, you have a smaller 312 disposable battery version, a regular size 312 disposable battery version, and a rechargeable version of this hearing aid. But each one of these also has an Absolute Power receiver option. In addition to the Bluetooth compatibility that I was talking about with all of these hearing aids, every single one of these hearing aids also has the ability to do remote programming with your hearing care professional, so you can be in the comfort of your own home or on vacation somewhere, and you can have a remote session with your hearing care professional in real time so they can make programming adjustments to your hearing aids.

All of them also have the capability of having exceptional sound quality as long as you have a hearing care professional who has programmed them correctly using real ear measurement to match your hearing loss prescription. Now, if you do not know what real ear measurement is, then I also recommend you check out the video that I will put in the description because real ear measurement is the only way to know if your hearing aids have been programmed correctly to your hearing loss prescription. And like I said before, every single one of these hearing aids has a more comprehensive review video on my channel because there are just way too many features and capabilities of these devices for me to include in this video. Overall, you really can't go wrong with any one of the hearing aids on this list, but there is one of these hearing aids that is likely the best hearing aid for you.

You just have to spend the time necessary to identify which hearing aid that is, and if you wanna make sure that you get this right, I do recommend that you consult with a hearing care professional who spends all day every day immersed in hearing aid technology just like I am. So you can find the best receiver in canal hearing aid for you in 2023. That's it for this video. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments section below. If you like the video, please share it. If you wanna see other videos just like this one, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Also, feel free to check out my website, HearingUp.com.